Ms. Ross Going To Washington With A Guggenheim

May 05, 1985|by CHERYL WENNER, Sunday Call-Chronicle.

For photographer Judith Joy Ross of Bethlehem, the U.S. Congress symbolizes the power of compromise.

Ross is fascinated by the notion that two factions with radically different ideologies can "agree to disagree and still, somehow, hold everything together" and hopes to capture that Congressional give and take in photographs.

New York City's John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation recently granted Ross a fellowship which will buy her time to watch the nation's legislators at work. Provided she gets the go-ahead from federal administrators, come spring 1986, she plans to tow her 8-inch by 10-inch view camera up the Hill and aim for "straightforward portraits" of Congress in action.

"There are a million things to photograph in this world, but a project like this has tremendous historical value," she said. "The idea is to reveal, not just record."

Ross, 38, was notified last month that she was one of seven photographers in the United States and Canada to receive the coveted grant this year, but she plans to hold off claiming the money until next spring.

In the 61st annual Guggenheim competition, grants totaling $5,408,000 were conferred upon 270 scholars, scientists, and artists chosen by the Foundation's selection committee from among 3,548 applicants. Recipients are named on the basis of demonstrated accomplishment in the past and strong promise for the future. In short, as Ross put it, "They like your work and want to support you while you make more."

When a letter in February notified Ross that she was among those chosen, she couldn't bring herself to open the envelope for four days and even now, "it seemslike a dream."

The timing was perfect. Just a few weeks before she learned she'd won the grant, her employment at Moravian College was terminated, effective when her contract expires at the end of the 1985-1986 term. Ross is currently assistant professor of photography at the school and has worked there for 13 years since moving to Bethlehem from Hazleton.

"I feel as if I've been released from prison. As much as I adore teaching, its a 15-hour-a-day job and leaves no time to make worthwhile photographs," she said. "This grant provides me with enough money to live on for an entire year and do whatever the heck I want."

First, Ross intends to fine-tone her body through swimming and exercise, so she can carry weighty photography equipment without straining muscles. Then, she'll build a home darkroom and devote the rest of the time to shooting.

The portfolio she submitted to the Guggenheim Foundation included 10 selections from her "Portraits at The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C." series, shot between 1983-1984, and 10 prints from the 1982 "Eurana Park" series, a collection of photos of children at a rural swimming hole.

Along with samples of her work, she was required to send a statement and four recommendations, which she acquired from Philadelphia photographer Nancy Hellebrand and Martins Creek photographer Larry Fink, both former Guggenheim winners, Susan Kismaric, associate curator of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and Andy Grundberg, a photo critic with The New York Times.

Ross judges that her work became mature "when I realized I could look for what life meant through making photos." That happened in 1982, when the Eurana Park Series took form.

Of the Eurana and Vietnam series, she says: "Those were the times when my work took off, period. When I photographed the visitors at the Vietnam War Memorial, for example, I didn't have such deep reasons for making the work except to release my own grief and anger. I thought I could figure it all out. I'd take a picture and solve a problem.

"Looking back, that was a very naive view, but it was a cathartic experience. Just being there helps get rid of a lot of anguish."

Without any evidence of the Memorial itself within the frames, the sombre, straightforward portraits of mourners in the Vietnam series project a sense of loss, showing that "we are emotional, vulnerable, humane beings in a world where a lot of people still want to pretend they're John Wayne."

She continued: "The photographer has to cope with all the problems in life and express questions. Why that particular kind of pain? Why that vulnerability?

"There is a particular sense of loss at the Memorial, but the pain is everyday. You can go to a supermarket parking lot and see just as much pain in the faces of some of the shoppers.

"If you can transcend that pain, to find beauty in everyday suffering, you've found meaning. And when you find meaning, you keep yourself sane.

"The pictures I make, thank God, transcend my own petty ideas. That's what beauty can do."